BOULDER — Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn got a new five-year contract and is now earning it by doing nothing but reading the Internet. Like everyone else in Colorado, he’s interested in Texas A&M. The Aggies appear to be a lock to bolt the Big 12 for the SEC.

Can you imagine how pitiful Colorado would look if it hadn’t left for the Pac-12? They’d be one more departure from joining the Mountain West. How would you like to pay current ticket prices to watch New Mexico?

Bohn didn’t want to comment. I understand why. Taking a shot at Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe would be like ripping an ex-girlfriend after you dump her.

Bohn and I saw this coming. Ever since most of the Big 12 South scuttled a move to the Pac-10, we knew the Big 12 was on shakier ground than Beebe on egg shells. Texas is wielding its Longhorn Network like Thor’s hammer. The Big 12 has been slanted toward Austin ever since Beebe kept the league alive at the 11th hour.

A&M is merely beating the rush out the door. It’s a great move for the Aggies on many fronts. Just joining the best league in the country raises their cache. The possible fund raising will be huge when AD Bill Byrne goes to boosters and promises home and homes with the likes of Florida, Auburn and Alabama.

The SEC also has a 15-year TV contract of $3 billion. With the Big 12 shrinking, in his next TV negotiations Beebe will have all the negotiating power of Oliver Twist.

What happens to the Big 12 is scary. They’ve gone from 12 teams to 10 and if A&M bolts it’s the Big 9. Beebe’s lone option is to expand. Find a team of lawyers to discover a loophole in TCU’s Big East contract and wave the automatic BCS bid and cheaper travel budget in its face.

The other options aren’t good. Houston? No fan base. BYU? Please. Right now, Beebe must sell a conference with Texas and Oklahoma as anchors and the dregs of Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State weighing it down. Beebe had better hope Oklahoma State can stay among the elite or the Big 12 or Big 9 or whatever will be left behind like an Iowa State cornerback.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s fans can mull their old league’s fate while savoring clam chowder in Seattle and Chardonnary in Palo Alto.

He must feel good about going from being the doormat in the Big 12 to the doormat of the Pac-12.

Smarter Guest

Tough to label Kansas one of the dregs with its basketball brand.

To the earlier post, calling CU a doormat is a little dramatic, especially if you had paid attention to the basketball program.
Besides, I would call Iowa State and Baylor the perennial doormats of the Big XII, CU has merely been woefully mediocre overall the past few years, though I would expect improvement under Embree with Pac 12 recruiting potential.

Symphony Sid

It’s ‘cachet,’ not ‘cache’.

http://twitter.com/johnywyo john taylor

Hmm, so doormat to cellar entrance is a good thing? Dicing the MW is a great thing isn’t it Mr. Photogenic?
I will guarantee you one thing, CU would not be the king of the hill in the MWC, even with the departure of our Utah colleagues. This whole drama has a long way to play itself out. Nothing against Embree, but the jury is out on whether the Buffs will even play at a level to be a rational foe for the lowest of the Pac-12/16 that will evolve over the next several seasons. Slamming New Mexico is no way to counter-balance a miserable record over the last decade. CSU and Air Force are still represented in the MW if you don’t recall, Huckabee.

westernwear

Almost every program has its bad years. CU certainly has had a fallow period. But at least they can answer the question, “When was your last national championship?” Enough about the past, which is a better conference to be in for the future?

For CU it is, hands down, the PAC 12. Media markets, peer institutions, alumni, all of it. A no brainer.

But the real story is the selfishness of conference killer Texas. Colorado’s departure is just the collateral damage.

No major conference will survive with a power member who hogs all the revenue. Texas is the school that is going to kill the Big 12 through their selfishness. Sure, they can get away with it because they are Texas. But the reason that CU and Nebraska left was the unfair distribution of revenue in the Big 12. The reason Texas A&M wants to leave is that instead of spreading the wealth, Texas wants even more with their own network. Every penny they can get now, screw the future, screw their conference partners. Apparently their calculation is that they don’t need them.

Remember that apparently Texas reportedly tried to squeeze financial concessions out of the PAC 12 at the end of negotiations. Prudently, the PAC 12 did not bite, they even took Utah over concessions to Texas. That is how important equality is to the long term survival of a college conference.

So what will the draw of the Big 12 be with Texas and the toddlers? The best school left will keep leaving until the conference is Texas and Iowa State. El foldo eventually.

Perhaps Texas thinks it can end up as a version of Notre Dame, an independent that writes it’s own rules. In that case they are just milking the saps in the Big 12 until each school figures it out. The death of the Big 12 is certain unless Texas changes its ways. The only uncertainty is the date.

westernwear

Oh, Texas A&M to the Big East, because TCU already gives them a footprint in Texas.

Anonymous

I really believe that TCU will rue the day they signed on with the Big Least. They jumped when they should have been watching. There is certainly no guarantee that entity will still be around in the not too distant future.

Kensler joined The Denver Post in 1989 and has covered a variety of beats, including Colorado, Colorado State, golf, Olympics and the Denver Broncos. His brush with greatness: losing in a two-on-two pickup basketball game at Ohio State against two-time Heisman Trophy winner Archie Griffin.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.